Senseless, lawless violence -- government reduced to its essence: BLM employee C.J. Ross commits a felonious assault on Nevada property rights activist Ken Greenwell, in Palomino Valley, Nevada, November 13, 2001. Greenwell had staged a peaceful protest of the BLM's theft of cattle belonging to rancher Ben Colvin. Ross, acting on behalf of the rustlers, took offense. Note the contrast between Ross's snarling, feral visage and the incredulous composure displayed by Greenwell, and ask yourself: Which of these two displays the civilized face of freedom?
When they arrived at the cattle camp in Nevada’s ParadiseValley, the three shabbily dressed men claimed that they were interested in ajob. Their timing was a bit odd; it was November, a little late in the year fora ranch to take on new hires. As it happens, the visitors weren’t looking forwork as buckaroos; they were looking for the wiry, brown-haired ranch hand namedClaude.
“You’re Dallas, aren’t you?” one of the strangers, a mannamed Frank Meale, asked the hand. When the young man replied that he was,Meale-- an undercover FBI agent -- and his two comrades -- FBI agent GeorgeSchwinn and Elko County Deputy Sheriff Noel McElhany – seized him, cuffed him,and stuffed him into the worn-out pickup truck that had brought them to thebunkhouse.
A few months earlier, Claude Dallas had been secretlyindicted by a federal grand jury, triggering a nation-wide manhunt by the FBIand the U.S. Marshals Service. Dallas, an Ohio native, had drifted west toNevada, where he found work as a cowboy. Polite, disciplined, and literate,Dallas distinguished himself by his appetite for honest work and his generaldisdain for the dissipations available in local saloons. He was alsodisinclined to talk about his background – a trait he shared with many otherswho chose this itinerant lifestyle.
“Claude is true Old West,” commented rodeo champion CortlandNielsen. “A lot of guys try it, but the first time they have to shave with coldwater they change their mind. Claude keeps going after it and after it. Heshould’ve been alive in the old days – a scout, the guy you send a day or twoahead to tell you how things are. He’d be perfect.” A photographer from National Geographic agreed with thatassessment, which is how Dallas ended up being featured in a story entitled “TheAmerican Cowboy in Life and Legend” – a clue not even the FBI could miss.
The officers who arrested Dallas said he was polite andfriendly. His captors didn’t reciprocate. Dallas was flown across the country,frog-marched through airports in handcuffs and a belly chain. On his arrival inMt. Gilead, Ohio, he was thrown into a drunk tank, where he was singled out forabuse by sheriff’s deputies.
Dallas was regarded as an exceptionally depraved offender: Hewas a “draft dodger,” having refused induction in 1968. This isn’t because hewas afraid to fight, or unable to – a fact well understood by the predatorybureaucrats who tracked him down.
“Most likely he’ll try to run, but he may try to shoot itout,” Meale told the other two members of his snatch team just before theabduction. “We’ll have to shut him right down.”
That “arrest” took place in November 1973 – nearly a yearafter the Vietnam War officially ended. The indictment against Dallas had beenissued the previous July – a month after the draft was discontinued. Yet theFeds insisted on stalking Dallas, humiliating him, abusing him, and trying toput him in a cage. After the case against him was dismissed because ofprocedural mistakes by the Mt. Gilead Draft Board, one of his kidnapperspromised that the persecution wouldn’t end.
“I’m gonna get you, Dallas – even if it’s just for taxevasion,” the FBI agent hissed in his ear as the cowboy was released.
When Dallas returned to Paradise Valley, his fellow ranchhands noticed an ominous change in his disposition.
“They wouldn’t have took me like this if they hadn’t got thedrop on me,” he fumed to friends in the bunkhouse. Dallas “was publicly heard toswear that no one would ever outdraw him again – no one,” recounted Jack Olsen in his book Give a Boy a Gun. “One of his closest friends asked how he feltabout the draft and the Vietnam War. He said that he would fight for hiscountry if he were asked in a nice way, but `nobody’s gonna order me around.'”
Roughly seven years later, two Idaho fish andgame wardens – Bill Pogue, a former Winnemucca, Nevada police chief, and ConleyElms – tracked down Dallas’s campsite about three miles on the Idaho side ofthe Nevada border in Owyhee County. Dallas, who had spent several years workingintermittently as a ranch hand and trapper, had developed a reputation amongfish and game officials – and Pogue most likely considered himself just the manto rein in the “renegade.”
Pogue, like other self-important martinets who seethemselves as indispensable cogs in the “mighty machine of the State,” was anauthoritarian prig who expected deference from Mundanes. Dallas, according to JimStevens, an eyewitness to the January 5, 1981 confrontation, wasn’t undulyimpressed by the uniformed bureaucrat. Dallas, Stevens later recalled, possessed“eyes that showed no fright.” This obviously wouldn’t turn out well for someone.
Ever since he had arrived in the West, Dallas had frequentlydisplayed an insouciant disregard for poaching laws. He had a handful of bobcathides in his camp. Although Dallas had a valid Idaho trapper’s license, bobcatseason wouldn’t open until January 9 – four days later. Pogue told Dallas thathe was going to be cited for possessing illegal hides and venison taken out ofseason. Then, according to Stevens, Pogue said he would have to arrest Dallas.
Those words would prove to be a death warrant.
“Areyou going to take me in?” Dallas asked Pogue. At the time, Dallas and the twogame wardens stood at points of a triangle roughly five to six feet apart. Atsome point, Pogue made a threatening gesture to his pistol. Stevens, who wasbusy elsewhere in the camp, didn’t see what happened next – but he heard theunmistakable report of a handgun, and whirled around to see Dallas in a shooter’scrouch, and a bloodstain spreading across Pogue’s chest. A fraction of a secondlater, Dallas shot Elms as well.
The wardens almost certainly died instantly. Nevertheless,Dallas delivered a coup de grace to each of them with a .22 rifle.
“Why, Claude? Why?” exclaimed Stevens in horror.
“I swore I’d never be arrested again,” replied Dallas. “Theywere going to handcuff me.”
Stevens would later testify that the wardens did notthreaten Dallas’s life “in any way.” This isn’t true: Every demand made by agovernment official contains the implicit threat of lethal violence against thosewho refuse to comply. This was particularly true of the armed strangers whothreatened to kidnapDallas at gunpoint – something not mandated by what they called the law, butmade necessary by Bill Pogue’s punitive nature.
“Nobody has the right to come into my camp and violate myrights,” Dallas insisted as Stevens absorbed the bloody aftermath of theencounter. “In my mind it’s justifiable homicide.”
Many people in Idaho and throughout the Intermountain Westagreed with that evaluation during the lengthy manhunt and high-profile trialthat followed the killings. The arrest was illegitimate, which meant thatDallas – under the Bad Elk precedent– had the right to use lethal force in self-defense. He didn’t ambush thewardens; he was outnumbered by armed, truculent men, and outdrew them.
It is true that Dallas had been poaching hides and game.Consider this: Seven years earlier, the Feds had seized him out of season, asit were, by arresting him after Congress had rescinded the hunting license ithad granted the draft-nappers. There’s no moral case to be made for theproposition that poaching game is a crime, but poaching human beings is soundand defensible public policy.
Claude Dallas was not a saint, but he only became a killerwhen he was cornered by gun-wielding government employees who most likely wouldhave found some way to validate the FBI agent’s threat: The FederalGovernment would find some way to “get him,” no matter how trivial theviolation.
The lethal encounter between Dallas and the Idaho gamewardens “fundamentally changed the relationship between the West and thosecharged with preserving its resources,” opinedthe Twin Falls Times-News in aneditorial clotted with collectivist assumptions (derived from the notion that theearth is the State’s and the fullness thereof). “Before Jan. 5, 1981, we hadwilderness rangers; ever since we’ve had wilderness policemen. The conservationofficer who checks your fishing license nowadays is more likely than not to bearmed.”
Of course, this isn’t a novelty, given that the wardens whothreatened to kidnap Dallas were carrying weapons and prepared to use them. Themost important difference is that most wilderness “policemen” have adopted theswaggering, imperious disposition of William Pogue.
Consider the case of Chico, California resident Jeff Newman, 53, a life-long avid skier who operatesa painting business. As a sideline, Newman "tunes" skis and teaches others how to performthis kind of maintenance.
Withthe exception of a decade he spent in the employment of the Forest Service(more appropriately called the Sylvan Socialist agency, or SS), Newman has madean honest living. In early 2010, Newman and some friends he had met in theemploy of the SS visited Colby Meadows in the Lassen National Forest, oneof their favorite skiing destinations.
Yearsearlier, Newman and his friends built a bulletin board -- with the permissionof the SS -- on which could be posted maps and emergency information. Duringtheir recent visit, one of Newman's friends, Larry Chrisman, posted anadvertisement for Newman's ski tuning service on the otherwise vacant bulletinboard.
Neither of them thought more of the matter untila few days later, when an armed, bellicose SS troglodyte named Paul Zohovetz materializedon Newman's doorstep in full battle array.Newman initially thought Zohovetz was a customer. Quite the opposite was thecase: He had traveled more than fifty miles to threaten Newman with a citationfor posting a commercial flier without the specific permission of the SS.
Asis often the case in such situations, thefoul-tempered official busybody began to harass Newman about mattersthat had nothing to do with the flier.
"I'mnot sure what this is all about," Newman complained.
"You'reunder arrest," snarled Zohovetz by way of reply.
Newmancommanded the armed intruder to leave his property. Zohovetz, already guilty ofcriminal trespass, compounded the crime by threatening to attack Newman with adeadly weapon by pointing his Taser at the man's face and neck.
That’sright: Even the Regime's forest rangers are now equipped with portable electro-shock torturedevices.
"Hehad this look in his eyes like he wanted to beat the crap out of me,"Newman recalled. A diabetic who suffers from permanent nervous system damage,Newman was understandably concerned that a Taser attack would kill him. So asany rational person would, he fled into his house. His deranged assailant,badly overestimating his physical prowess, tried to kick down the door,succeeding only in leaving a muddy footprint.
Newmancalled Chrisman to his home as a witness. Zohovetz, having failed in his effortto bully the mild-mannered Newman by himself, called for backup from the localpolice department. After his friend arrived, Newman emerged from the house,only to be handcuffed. As a result of not taking insulin yet that day, he wentinto convulsions.
Satisfiedthat he'd made whatever point he sought to make, Zohovetz released Newman andtold him that he was only issuing a "warning" regarding the flier. He also issued acitation for "threatening an officer," a charge that carries a sixmonth jail sentence and a $5,000 fine.
Theappropriately named SS spokesman John Heil insisted that Zohovetz behavedappropriately by driving 50 miles to issue a "warning" and thenneedlessly escalating a trivial matter into a life-threatening confrontation.
Whenthe case went to trial in March 2011, U.S. District Court Magistrate Craig M.Kellison ruled that Zohovetz “had no right to remain on Newman’s property oncehe had been ordered to leave.” He also cited a Supreme Court precedentacknowledging that the “freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challengepolice action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principalcharacteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”
It’sall but certain that those in the leadership echelons of SS are aware of theoutcome of that case – and it’s just as likely that they have made a consciousdecision to ignore it. This would explain a nearly fatal incident involving SSofficer Shawn Tripp that took place in Montana’s Little Belt Mountains lastNovember 26.
Bill and Tammie McCutcheon, residents of Roundup, Montana,were on a hunting trip with their four children – two teenagers and18-month-old twins. Tammie, along with her 12-year-old daughter andthe twins, had pulled over to the side of the road while Bill and the couple’steenage son gone into the nearby forest.
Tripp,who was patrolling on a four-wheeler, approached the truck from behind. Tammie toldthe Billings Gazette that sheinitially thought Tripp, who was wearing a jacket with no insignia identifyinghimself as a federal officer, was another hunter. When she asked Tripp who hewas, the SS officer “refused to identify himself and demanded that she get outof the truck.”
Things became immediately and dramatically worse, recountsthe Gazette. Tripp began “questioningher about whether they had driven past the `road closed’ sign…. TammieMcCutcheon said she was worried about her twins alone in the truck but wastrying to respond to Tripp's questions. The encounter escalated, TammieMcCutcheon said, when Tripp tried to remove a hunting tag from theantlers of a deer in the back of the couple's truck. Tammie McCutcheonsaid she believed Tripp had no authority to remove the tag, and she grabbed itfrom his hand, bumping against him as she reached for the tag.”
Owing to the State supremacist indoctrination he had received,Tripp perceived that incidental contact as the high and grievous crime – nay,sin – of “assaulting a federal official.” Accordingly, he grabbed the terrifiedmother, threw her up against the truck, and roughly cuffed her hands behind herback. He then shoved her face-down on the open tailgate and began to paw theshrieking woman beneath her clothes.
Tripp might consider this a “search”; by any rational definition,it was a sexual assault by an armed stranger who had spit out several angrydemands but refused to identify himself (not that doing so would have justifiedhis actions).
“Ithought I was going to get raped," Tammie later recalled. The noiseattracted the attention of her husband Bill, who had reached the top of a smallnearby hill – and looked down to see, from about 100 yards away, a man ontop of his wife as she screamed for help.
Hurryingdown the hill, Bill ordered the assailant to leave his wife alone. As Tripplater admitted on the record, the properly infuriated husband never pointed hisrifle at him – even though he would have been well within his legal and moralrights to use lethal force to stop the assault. Tripp, however, drew his pistoland pointed it at Bill, ordering him to drop his rifle. At one point, accordingto Tammi, the “unstable” and “muttering” SS enforcer pointed his sidearm at thecouple’s 12-year-old daughter.
Acall for assistance issued by Tripp was answered by Wheatland County SheriffJim Rosenberg, who was hunting nearby. The Sheriff, who should have arrested Tripp for aggravated armed assault and sexual battery, chose instead to arrest Bill, who was heldin jail for five days before being released. Significantly, in an interviewwith an investigator hired by the McCutcheons’ attorney, Sheriff Rosenberg wastold by Tripp that Bill never pointed the rifle at him.
Nonetheless,Bill and Tammie were indicted in federal court on January 26 on charges thatthey “forcefully assaulted, resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated, andinterfered” with Tripp. Bill McCutcheon faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000fine; Tammie – whose “crime” consisted of protecting herself from a sexualassault, could be sentenced to 8 years in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Duringa dispute over the SS’s actions in closing down a road in Nevada’s Elko Countya decade ago, the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade, alocal citizen’s group ran a radio ad describing the agency’s personnel as“armed and dangerous.”
“TheForest Service has a new policy of issuing citations for the following offense:Operating any vehicle off road in a manner which damages or unreasonablydisturbs the land, wildlife or vegetative resources,” observed the radio spot.“If apprehended by Forest Service personnel, consider them armed and dangerousand cooperate with them to the fullest. Then contact the Jarbidge ShovelBrigade for assistance.”
Thatprompted a petulant complaint from the SS that the ads were “inflammatory” andtended to promote “ill will” toward the agency. Oh, dearie dear – we can’t havethat, can we?
LikeJeff Newman – who was once employed by the agency -- Bill and Tammie McCutcheoncan testify of the indisputable truth of the characterization offered by the ShovelBrigade. Their experiences also underscore the wisdom of having the means todefend one’s self and one’s family in the event one encounters a predatory Fedin the wilderness – or, as Newman’s case demonstrates, in one’s own home.
For killing the two wardens who tried to kidnap him, Claude Dallas eventually served 22 years for voluntarymanslaughter. The foreman of the jury that convicted Dallas later said that he would have been acquitted ofall charges if he hadn’t delivered what was most likely a gratuitous coup degrace. The Regime remembers those details. We should, as well.
Obiter Dicta
Owing to travel, unanticipated difficulties on the home front (Korrin is doing much better now; my earnest thanks to everyone who has expressed their concerns on her behalf), and my responsibilities over at Republic magazine, posting here has been sporadic as of late. I appreciate your patience, and your continued material support. I'm generally posting at least one short piece -- sometimes two or more -- each day at republicmagazine.com. Please drop by and sign up for your free digital subscription!
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Dum spiro, pugno!
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